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Wayne State University grants

Funding sets the course

$588M in NIH grants fuel the region's research

Where will the next scientific and medical discoveries come from? Follow the money.

The National Institutes of Health, part of the U.S. Department of Healthand Human Services, handed out grants worth more than $23.7 billion in 2011, and almost half a billion dollars landed in metro Detroit.

A wide variety of grants and awards comes out of the NIH and its 27 institutions and centers, each of which is focused on a different concentration, such as the National Cancer Institute.

The grants are given to organizations for research-related purposes, which can be training, construction, research and development or fellowships. And not all grants are given to researchers conducting experiments; some are given to support the ongoing research efforts of an organization.

Some of the awards are competitive, meaning they are standing awards that any institution can apply for. Some renew regularly and are only for one institution. Some are contracts, and some are agreements between NIH and the awarded organization.

Of the 1,539 NIH grants given to organizations in Michigan in 2011, together worth more than $655.4 million, 1,367 grants and $588 million went to Southeast Michigan.

Michigan is 11th on the list of states that received funding. California was first with more than $3.5 billion.

• Grant: $4.6 million• NIH funding start: Unavailable

• Project leader: Ann Schwartz, associate department chair, oncology department, school of medicine• Project: This surveillance, epidemiology and end results grant will support the Metro Detroit Cancer Surveillance System run by WSU. It is one of 18 national cancer registries funded by the National Cancer Institute.

• Grant: $2.55 million

• NIH funding start: August 1997• Project leader: Gerold Bepler, associate dean, oncology department, school of medicine• Project: Cancer center support grant. Accepted on behalf of the Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute, this grant supports ongoing research at the institute. The institute's established programs include breast cancer biology; developmental therapeutics; molecular biology and genetics; population studies and disparities research, and proteases and cancer.